Reading is an Act – artist talk & walk by Yeb Wiersma

For Reading is an Act for artist Yeb Wiersma developed a special script for the building in which the current residents are characters. The artist responds to the monumental architecture of the Justus van Effen Complex, where A Tale of a Tub is housed in the former bathhouse. Wiersma’s work is often fleeting and is physically expressed in scripts and choreographies in addition to public interventions. Reading is an Act will be activated on Saturday, October 22nd from 4 – 6pm and connects the genius loci of the complex with stories from far away in an associative manner.

In this artist talk & walk on location Wiersma tells us more about her work and responds to both the special architectural features of the building as well as the social fabric of its residents and the neighborhood. For Reading is an Act, the artist bought indigo pigment of the tropical plant “Indigofera Tinctoria” from Mr Bharat Lachmansingh on the Kruiskade in Rotterdam. This ink is commonly used during cleansing rituals. Wiersma used the extract in powder form for the printing of the script. Visitors to the exhibition may take the prints home with them.

About the Artist
The work of Yeb Wiersma (1973, NL) examines the extent to which we can provide mobile and meaningful interpretations to the daily script in which we operate (the human condition). Through her hybrid practice Wiersma creates sensory and imaginary conditions that enable encounters with the unknown, the other and also question and disrupt the relationship between past and present, fact and fiction, here and there, culture and nature. Wiersma graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (Fine Arts) in Amsterdam after which she continued her studies at Cooper Union in NYC. In 2014 Wiersma was granted as artist-in-residence at the Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht. Her works have been presented by FOAM Amsterdam, Museum De Paviljoens, Almere, Van Abbe Museum Eindhoven, Fantastic Man Magazine, Vrij Nederland, Jinji Lake Art Museum Suzhou a.o.

The Center of the Story # 1
The exhibition The Center of the Story # 1 – to which Reading is an Act belongs – is currently on display at A Tale of a Tub. In this duo exhibition the notion of empathy plays a central role. Alejandro Cesarco’s new and recent works are shown for the first time extensively in the Netherlands. What characterizes both artists is a clear, often modernist visual language and a practically grammatical analysis of emotion and feeling. A recurrent theme in The Center of the Story #1 is the desire to understand oneself and another and the role of language and imagination in this process.

The Center of the Story #1 is curated by Suzanne Wallinga and is supported by the City Council of Rotterdam, Pauwhof Fund & Stichting Bevordering van Volkskracht. A Tale of a Tub and Yeb Wiersma wish to thank the Rotterdam Sanitation Department, the Rotterdam Public Library and last but not least Charles Nypels Lab (Maastricht) for their kind collaboration. The research for The Center of the Story is supported by a grant from the Mondriaan Fund.

Image: The Tale of Bharat Lachmansingh, Reading is an Act, Yeb WIersma (2016)